How do I make shelves in my kitchen to hold heavy dishes?
by
SEL
+2
I have a 10 ft wall that I want to build shelves on to hold my Pfaltzgraf dishes. They are very heavy. We bought 4 10ft long 12ft wide planks. But we are not certain how to make the brackets strong enough to hold the heavy dishes. Also, how many brackets we will need. The walls are plaster.
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So many variables here. The age of your house comes into play. My 1890s home has studs that are 24", mostly ;) The thickness of your plaster should be known. I have found my stud finder to be useless in locating studs. I just go from a junction box (which are attached to a stud) and measure from there, with a prayer. My go to when it all seems to much is to use molly or toggle bolts. This link will give you all the information you need to get those shelves up with even spacing of your brackets. https://drilling-it.com/best-anchors-for-plaster-walls-reviews/
Purchase a high end stud finder that will work on plaster walls. Affix the brackets to the studs. I would recommend heavy duty support brackets, putting one in each stud. Better safe than sorry.
I don't have any Phaltzgraf dishes but I have a huge collection of china, a lot of it in my open kitchen shelves.. These shelves are 8" deep and probably about 8' long. The free standing unit is plywood and I think the shelves are about 4" long. These are both about 40 years old. my house also has irregular studs.
Definitely find the studs. One method is to drive a finish nail into the wall at 1" intervals until you hit a stud. Then measure over from there and find the next one the same way.
Just guessing here but if I were doing this I would support the ends of each shelf and then if the studs are on 24" centers I would put a a bracket at every stud. If on 16" centers I would put a bracket every other stud and in that case if the shelves show sagging you could always add more brackets.